Melissa Joseph’s Felted Tributes to Family Archives
Joseph’s work exudes both playfulness and gravity, evoking fond memories while channeling the sorrow of the last year.
https://hyperallergic.com/640357/melissa-joseph-nee-regular-normal/
Darn tootin’: decorative mending with Celia Pym – in pictures
After Celia Pym’s great-uncle Roly passed away in 2007, she inherited his old, worn-out jumper. It was damaged at the forearms, marking the spot where his arms rested while he sat drawing on his armchair, and had previously been mended by his sister. Pym became fascinated with the idea of visible mending, letting garments tell the stories of their owners.
Banknote embroidery as political art – in pictures
American artist Stacey Lee Webber has embroidered money for more than a decade. She started as a way to question the value of work by meticulously stitching patterns on to worthless one dollar bills. The latest incarnation – the Insurrection Bills – is a response to the US’s febrile political climate.
‘Renegade’ Rug Makers Create Community, Tufting On TikTok
In these TikTok videos, tufters draw with an industrial metal tool, making textured zig zags and bright curves on a blank canvas. Their tufting guns shoot out yarn in shaggy lines of color.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/18/984023155/renegade-rug-makers-create-community-tufting-on-tiktok
Figurative Wool Sculptures by Nastassja Swift Explore the Memories and Narratives of Blackness
Through fiber-based figures often arranged in large gatherings, Swift explores various narratives tied to Blackness, particularly those that relate to water and ancestral presences. “I’m interested in taking those things as starting points and imaging a space or happening that involves my sculpture and allows me to think through a hypothetical rooted in that memory or history,” the Virginia-based artist says.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/04/nastassja-swift-figure-sculptures/
Yukon woman turns photographs into beaded art
‘I’m just trying to bead some of our history,’ says Mary Blahitka
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-woman-is-creating-a-whole-new-genre-of-beading-1.5984629
Hundreds of Minuscule Paper Cranes Perch in Bonsai Trees in Naoki Onogawa’s Sculptures
Using just his hands, Tokyo-based artist Naoki Onogawa folds scores of origami cranes with wingspans that never top a single centimeter. He then fastens the minuscule birds to asymmetric tree forms, creating bonsai-like sculptures engulfed by hundreds of the monochromatic paper creatures.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/04/naoki-onogawa-paper-cranes/
Textile artists: the pioneers of a new material world
These contemporary textile artists are weaving together the common threads and rich variety of fibre art in new ways.
https://www.wallpaper.com/art/contemporary-textile-artists
Life-Sized Wildlife Protrude from Ornate Rugs in Perspective-Bending Sculptures
A new menagerie of polar bears, stags, and kangaroos resemble typical wildlife except for the fact that they’re literally swept under the carpet, their features hidden from view. These towering sculptural forms are by artist Debbie Lawson (previously), who crafts animals that are cloaked in sweeping Persian rugs. Rather than being camouflaged by a forest, jungle, or snow-covered Arctic, Lawson’s creatures boldly protrude from the fabric and loom over the viewer.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/03/debbie-lawson-animal-sculptures/
A Massive Catalogue of Stutched CMYK Studies of Evelin Kasikow Merges Printing and Embroidery
In “XXXX Swatchbook,” Evelin Kasikov (previously) explores all of the variables of CMYK printing without a single drop of ink. She catalogs primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, two-dozen combinations showing how rotation affects the final pigment, and a full spectrum of rich gradients. In total, the printing-focused book is comprised of four base tones, 16 elements, and 400 swatches of color entirely hand-embroidered in 219,647 stitches.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/03/evelin-kasikov-xxxx-swatchbook/
Australian artist Kate Just on art history, women’s labour and knitting her way to the Museum of Contemporary Art
Kate Just has spent nearly two years knitting. Knitting on public transport, in art galleries, shops and meetings. “It is about how I work full time, and have two kids, while juggling my art career … [and] how easy it is to have your own needs, your own intellect, your own artistic expression, suppressed in favour of other people’s needs.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-26/melbourne-artist-feminist-knitting-art-history/13259708
Lush Tufted Tapestries Document Ecological Changes in Argentina’s Landscapes
Artist Alexandra Kehayoglou (previously) creates exquisite pieces of flowing textiles that reference the rugged landscapes of her homeland, Argentina. In the creation of each tapestry, Kehayoglou transforms surplus carpet fabric into natural elements that range from a spectrum of Earth-colored mosses to clusters of trees and serpentine rivers that cut through the heart of her weaves.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2021/03/alexandra-kehayoglou-tapestries/
12 female fibre artists transforming space through textiles
For decades fibre and textile art weren’t recognised as significant within the arts industry, relegated to mere ‘hobby crafts – a derogatory term that devalued and dismissed the works of womxn artists. Today its been reclaimed and championed by the feminist movement, with textile artists exploring gender, politics and intimacy in their works. Here are 12 womxn shaping the narrative.
https://thespaces.com/12-female-fibre-artists-transforming-space-through-textiles/